The Rain in Spain...

Falls mainly on the weekend. The weather has been very wet the past three days. Thus, the activities most of the USAC students did were limited. Sunday, I walked to the neighborhood called Portugalete. It's on the other side of the river bank that I have grown accustomed to so needless to say, I went there with the intent to get lost. Here are some of my highlights:

Walking down the hill to the river in Portugalete

Small salsa festival for the older generation

One end of the suspension bridge

Giant platform holding cars and people being transported over the river

I aimlessly walked on to the platform without paying

Crossing the suspension bridge took me to Areeta, which I was already familiar with. I had a sweet tooth at the time and decided to get homemade gelato from a little shop I always passed by in Casco Viejo. By metro, I arrived at my destination in about 15 minutes, where I got this:

Queso Idiazabal Ahumado Con Nucces Y Membrillo. In other words, cheese ice cream with walnuts and a caramel like sauce. I have actually seen cheese with walnuts and quince sweet on the menu of a relatively nice restaurant in Bilbao so I guess why not turn it into ice cream. Ultimately, it was very strange and hard to eat at first but it became better the more you ate of it. The cheese crumbles made the texture feel like ice cream that's too icy, but the walnuts made up for it.

Monday, I spent the entire day (aside from class) with these people:

Kaitlin (UNR) and Nick (NAU)

The day included a trip to a local bookstore in Bilbao, dinner around 10pm, and an adventure at a children's park till 1am. Although we had planned to go to a really nice restaurant for the evening, we later found out that we were largely under-dressed for the occasion. Instead, we grabbed some individual pizzas for about 10 Euros (about 13 dollars). Things to note: Spaniards still don't go light on the oils/fats, even with pizza. However, we believe it's a trade-off given their lack of processed foods. Even on the soft drinks we had, we couldn't find anything close to the ever-so-common "high fructose corn syrup," typical of the average American diet. Instead, they opt for actual sugar, which although still bad, it doesn't make you stupid. Also relevant, Bilbao has many dozens of parks and recreational areas for children (which we took the liberty of enjoying in as well), which isn't always the first (or even top five) option among children in the U.S. Conclusion: Spanish people are relatively healthy.

Tempted to get a head start on next semester

Even more tempted to get a freshly baked pastry

Texture: Like biting into a lemon-flavored cloud

Big statues of food aren't that uncommon here

Nick's carbonara pizza = best breakfast idea ever

Thin crust that would make New Yorkers proud

Ultimately, its been a great here for the past few days despite the weather.